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England 1, Paraguay 0 (an own goal gave us victory).
We played well in the first half - we attacked the whole time and denied PAraguay the chance to reciprocate. Beckham was very sharp. In the second half we fell into the English trap of sitting back and trying to defend a one-goal lead; on most occaisions we are made to pay for this policy, on this occaision we rode it out and got the win. We never look comfortable playing that way, and PAraguay made us look like much the lesser team in the second half.
I don't understand why Sven didn't give Theo Walcott at least five or ten minutes at the end of the game - at somepoint we may have to rely on him, so it's best that he gains some comfortable experience early on. Surely Owen/Walcott would have been a more sensible substitution than Owen/Downing?
The referee: I'm glad we won, because it doesn't sound like sour grapes if I say that he was bad to the point of favouritism. His victimisation of Crouch, who was regularly penalised and even yellow-carded for nothing whatsoever, raises serious concerns about his objectivity. It'll be interesting to hear FIFA's match report on him - can yellow cards be appealed against and recinded at this tournament?
Parguay showed in the second half that given time and space, they are an effective unit, and could have scored - they've had some very good results in qualifying and friendly matches, and should be a threat to other teams. That forward of theirs likes to fall over though, doesn't he?
THree points though, and some good performances.
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